Method of blind eyeleting and product produced thereby



July 21, 1931. H. A. EVANS 1,815,434

, METHOD OF BLIND EYELETING AND PRODUCT PRODUCED THEREBY Original Filed Oct. 28, 192? Patented July 21, 193 1 I UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE HAROLD A. EVANS, F LYNN, MASSACHUSETTS, ASSIGNOR, BY MESNE ASSIGNMENTS,

TO PARCO SPECIALTY 00., OF LYNN, MASSACHUSETTS, A CORPORATION OF MASSA- GHUSETTS METHOD OF BLIND EYELETING AND PRODUCT PRODUCED THEBEBY Application filed October 28, 1927, Serial No. 229,352. Renewed December 16, 1930.

5 in the reinforcing ply and is concealed beneath or behind the face of the material.

This method is well known and is widelypractised in the shoe making art in setting eyelets in shoe uppers. It is described in the patent to L. Muther, No. 1,112,643, dated October 6, 1914.

In setting eyelets according to this method as heretofore practised, defects frequently occur, due to the fact that the advancing barrel end of the eyelet, after passing through the hole in the reinforcing ply fails to push the outer ply away and to separate the latter fully from the reinforcing ply. The result is that the barrel end of the eyelet passes to a greater or less extent through or into the outer ply, and one or more of the scores, i. e., the segments of the barrel end of the eyelet which are torn apart from one another and flanged over in the course of setting, appear on the outer face of the outer ply, or enter the substance of the ply and give an unsightly appearance. While the greatv majority of eyelets set according to the blind setting method are properly set, yet the occurrence of errors of the character above-.mentioned is so frequent that there will be one or more eyelets thus improperly set in almost every pair of shoe uppers passing through the process, and it is a necessary part of the procedure in shoe manufacturing where this process is used to inspect every upper for such errors. This inspection is carried out by the workman grasping the upper in one hand and the facing or lining ply in the other hand, these plies being thenstitched together only at the lacing edge of the upper, and pulling them apart with a sharp motion. This motion disengages the scores of any eyelet which may have passed through or penetrated the upper leather, and afterwards the scores which have been so disengaged are.

hammered down. This inspection and the subsequent repair of defective work is a cause of substantial expense and frequently the defects are so serious as to diminish the value of the finished shoe.

Although in the foregoing description I have spoken of the shoe upper in the region where the eyelets are applied as consisting only of two plies, the upper leather and the facing, it is the usual practice to insert a stay strip between them to reinforce the facing ply and protect the latter from injury due to the rough edges of the flanged over scores of the eyelets. Frequentl also a reinforcing or stiffening layer of abric is cemented and stitched to the back side of the upper leather. The present invention is concerned with the commonly used commercial method employing such a stay strip.

The troubles to which I have referred are due to the way in which the stay strip is applied. Such strip is laid against the back side of the upper and made fast thereto by adhesive, after which the upper leather, with the stay strip thus applied, and the facing strip are superposed and stitched together along one edge. When the eyelets are set, the adhesion between the stay strip and the upper leather makes it difficult for the barrel end of the eyelet when being flanged outward to push the upper leather away from the stay strip and enter its scores between them. No other way of applying the stay strip has heretofore been found satisfactory in practice. Although attempts have been made to apply them otherwise in the effort to obviate the defects noted, such attempts have generally been abandoned after trial.

I have devised a new mode of attaching the stay strip to the upper leather, or equivalent ply of a plural ply construction in which eyelets are to be set and concealed by the outer ply. This new mode, or method, consists in uniting the stay strip adhesively to the rear surface of the upper leather, or equivalent ply, along its edges only, leaving its central zone unattached, and so locating the strip that the unalttached middle zone extends .along that part of the fabric in which the eyelets are to be set. While it ispreferable that the unattached zone should be at least as wide as the hole through which the eyelet passes and should coincide with the location of the hole, it is not essential in practice that there should be such an exact correspondence in width and position, for practical success is achieved if the unattached zone registers only partially with the area through which the eyelet is passed, and if one of the adhes'ively attached zones partly overlaps such area.

In carrying out my new method, I have provided a stay strip, and strip material from which stays of suitable length may be cut, such stays and strip material being coated with adhesive on one side near the edge portions and being non-adhesive along the middle zone in a width suitable for the particular structure in which the stay strip is used. Such a non-adhesive quality of the middle zone may be obtained in a variety of ways as will presently appear from the following detailed description.

The invention consists both in the improvement in the method of blind eyeleting, accomplished by the use of an improved and novel stay strip, as above outlined, and in part by a shoe upper eyeletted by said method as a new article of manufacture. The invention does not necessarily involve any chan e in the steps of punching eyelet holes in file fabric and setting the eyelets therein, or in the machines and tools used for carrying out these steps, but may be practiced with the use of the machines and appliances heretofore used in the art.

In drawings furnished with this specification,-

Fig. 1 is a fragmentary view showing a table of an eyeleting machine and the eyelet set and anvil' in the course of setting an eyelet according to the blind setting method as modified by the present invention; 1

Fig. 2 is a sectional view of a fragment of a shoe upper, modified in accordance with this invention, with the eyelet set therein beneath the upper leather;

Fig. 3 is a fragmentary cross-section of the upper leather with my improved stay strip applied thereto;

Fig. 4 is a perspective view of a stay strip made according to this invention;

Fig. 5 is a longitudinal, fragmentary sec-- tion of the upper leather, having a series of eyelets set therein;

Fig. 6 is a fragmentary, perspective view of the facing strip of a shoe upper and a stay strip made according to this invention in the position which it occupies with respect to the facing ply when the upper leather ply has been assembled with the latter; such upper leather ply being omitted from this drawing for clearness.

vInthe performance of this invention, I provide a stay strip a which may be made of light duck, or other textile fabric, leather, or any other material having suflicient strength and being otherwise suitable for the purposes of a stay, or reinforcing strip, to support the flanged over scores of an eyelet in a leather facing or a suitable facing of other material. The strip is coated with adhesive on one face in zones bb, extending lengthwise of the strip at and adjacent to the opposite edges thereto for a suficient distance inward from each edge to afford a sufiiciently strong bond when the strip is applied to the back face of the shoe upper. The central, longitudinal zone a of the strip is non-adhesive. This non-adhesive character may be given by omitting adhesive entirely from the central zone, or by laying on such zone, after the strip has been adhesively coated over its whole width, a strip of thin material, as woven fabric, braid, paper or similar material which has no adhesive on its outer sur face. In the drawing, I have shown an added strip on the coated face of the stay strip as the means to render the central zone of the material non-adhesive, exaggerating the thickness of the superimposed narrow stripfor clearness of illustration. It is to be understood that this added strip, when used, is preferably of very slight thickness, and that a stay strip which is made non-adhesive in the center by omission of the adhesive material, or by other means, is equivalent to that here shown. The adhesive used is preferably a rubber cement which is sufficiently tenacious for the purpose in view and does not dry or harden quickly. Such cements are well known and are used in the shoe making art, and for coating surgical tape, and other purposes. The foregoing statement indicates the preferred qualities and characteristics of the adhesive ina general way but is not to be construed as limiting, in any way, the invention which I claim herein.

The stay strip so constituted is laid upon the rear face of the upper leather 0!, as shown in Fig. 3, extending along the line in which the lacing holes are to be punched and under which the blind eyelets are to be set, and

preferably with its non-adhesive zone registering as nearly as possible with the areas to be occupied by the eyelets. The upper, with the stay strip so applied, is then laid onthe facing ply, or lining e, and stitched to the latter along the edges f and g, in the usual manner.

The subsequent operations of punching the lacing holes and setting the eyelets are, or may be, carried out in the usual way, with the aid of a combined punch and setting tool 72. and anvil j. In this operation the upper is placed so that the lacing holes are punched and the eyelets set in the prescribed locations; and, as the stay strip a has been previously laid with its non-adhesive, central zone in the same location, the holes are punched through this non-adhesive zone. When an eyelet is passed through one of these holes from the outer side of the facing ply, its barrel is able to push the upper leather away from the unfastened part of the strip and over the shoulder of the tool h. Thus, the scores which are spread outward from the barrel end of the eyelet are able to pass between the stay strip and the upper leather without, in any instance, passing through the hole in the upper leather or cutting into it, and all the scores of each eyelet are properly set to overlie the stay strip but no part of the upper leather. This result is obtained even though the punched holes should partly overlap one of the adhesive zones of the reinforcing strip because even in that case the substantial area over which there is no adhesive between the upper leather and the strip enables the leather to be pushed away from the strip by the advancing eyelet.

What I claim and desire to secure by Letters Patent is:

1. The improvement in the method of blind eyeleting which consists in providing between the inner ply in which the eyelet is to be set and the outer, concealing ply a reinforcing strip which is adhesively attached at its edges only to the outer ply and is unattached in a middle area, which coincides approximately with the location of the eyelet, and then setting the eyelet so as to pass through and grasp the stay strip and inner ,ply while separatmgthe outer ply from the stay strip.

2. The improvement in the art of blind eyeleting which consists in laying a stay strip on the rear face of an outer ply, uniting'such strip adhesively along its edges to the ply and leaving its longitudinal, central zone unattached thereto, at the same time so placing the strip that such zone coincides approximately with the areas in which the eyelets are to be located, then superimposing the before named ply upon a facing ply with the strip between them and setting eyelets in the facing ply and strip by the blind eyeleting process.

3. In the art of setting eyelets in shoe uppers with concealment of the eyelet from the outer side of the upper leather and the use of a reinforcing strip between the upper leather and facing ply, the improvement, in the mode of attaching the stay strip prior to the eye-- leting step, which consists 1n adhesively se curing the stay strip to the rear face of the upper leather along the edges only of the stay strip, leaving its center unattached, and so locating the strip that its unattached center coincides approximately with the location in which eyelets are to be set.

4. The combination with a shoe upper, of a stay stripadhesively attached to the back of that part of the upper in which lacing holes are cut; the strip being so attached at its are cut; the strip being so attached at its edge portions and being free of attachment in its middle zone, such middle zone being approximately of equal width and approximately the same alinement as the areas in which eyelets are to be set.

6. The combination of a shoe upper, a stay strip adhesively attached to the back of said upper, a facing ply secured to the edge of the upper outside of said stay strip, and eyelets passing strip and being clinched on the latter back of the upper; the adherence between the stay strip and upper being limited to less than the entire area of the strip, and those parts of the strip through which the eyelets pass being substantially non-adherent to the upper.

7. The combination with a shoe upper, of a stay strip adhesively attached .to that part of the upper in which eyelet openings are cut;

the strip being thus adhesively attached at one of its edge portions and being free of attachment in its middle zone, said zone having the strip being thus adhesively attached at one of its edge portions and being free of attachment in its middle zone, said zone having eyelet openings and eyelets extendlng through through said facing ply and stay said openings in the middle zone, and the strip having a relatively greater thickness and a relatively greater amount of material in its middle zone which receives the eyelets than at its edges.

9. The combination with a shoe upper, of a stay strip adhesively secured to the upper, an a joining facing ply, and eyelets disposed in openings in the middle zone of the strip, said middle zone being relatively thicker than the edge portions of the stay strip, whereby the middle zone provides a relatively greater amount of material to hold the eyelets.

10. The combination of a shoe upper, a stay strip adhesively attached to theback of said upper, a facing ply secured to the edge of the upper outside of said stay strip, and eyelets passing through said facing ply and stay strip; the adherence between the stay strip and upper being limited to lessthan the entire area of the strip, and those parts of the strip through which the eyelets pass being substantially non-adherent to the upper.

In testimony whereof I have aifixed my signature.

HAROLD A. EVANS.

edge portions and being free of attachment in I its middle zone. 

